Alice In Wonderland Syndrome

Is this real life? Or a fantasy?

Alice In Wonderland Syndrome

Is this real life? Or a fantasy?

Symptoms

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome ( Todd's disease) is known for causing hallucinations. These hallucination cause a disturbance in one's brain, interfering with your senses such a sight, sound, touch and even one's self awareness of time. This is also known as the distortion of visual, sound, touch and time perception.

Examples:

Distortion of visual perception: Todd's disease is mostly found in young children and rarely in adults. These victims will visualize items and people (including themselves) differently. Objects surrounding them may appear far in range or closer than expected. People may seem noticeably taller or shorter with disturbingly smaller or larger body parts. The confusion of their own body parts can be misjudged as well.

Distortion of sound perception: AIWS can cause sounds to become louder, lower and softer then they are. For example someone talking next to you can sound irritatingly high and piercing to the ear and then sound mute.

Distortion of touch perception: The texture of objects might feel differently. A person might pick up a book for instants and it would feel wet, sticky, rough, soft, fuzzy etc.

Distortion of time perception: Time might feel as though it is frozen, slowed down, or speeded up. Although the victims completely aware of what's occurring, their surroundings appear to be not up to pace with your brain and they are unable to do anything about it.

Causes

There are numerous causes to AIWS.

Migraines/Headaches: The most common cause to this disease are headaches and migraines. Having migraines cause these people to experience visual anomalies. Visual anomalies are an abnormally high portion of monocytes in the blood.

Infectious mononucleosis: Infectious mononucleosis is cause by Epstein Barr virus. This causes people to feel as if they are taking on a new life form or shape. Similar to how a butterfly or frog goes through metamorphosis.

Temporal lobe epilepsy: This is a seizure disorder produced by abnormal electrical discharges in the temporal lobe of the brain. This mostly affects with visual and hearing perception. Being the fact that AIWS is mostly found in children, temporal lobe epilepsy is more active at night. This is because kids tend to become more afraid in the dark causing temporal lobe epilepsy to act up more.

Sinusitis: This is the inflammation of sinuses, which are air-filled spaces in the skull. People with sinusitis may witness visual hallucinations that links to AIWS (Todd's disease).

Brain Tumors: Similar to most of the causes of AIWS, brain tumors cause hallucinations that can lead to Todd's diseases.

The side effects of medication: Some people can experience an interference with their visual perception on and off of a medical drug. These drugs are usually for mental purposes.

Genetic: AIWS can be genetically passed down from parent to offspring.

Prevalence of AIWS

Due to the fact that AIWS is a rare disease, researchers are unable to calculate the amount of people that have been a victim of Todd's disease. However, it is known that children between the ages of 5 and 10 make up the majority of people with this disease.

Range of AIWS

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome is not something that is contagious. It is said that people who have frequent migraines are more prone to the disease. Not a lot of people experience this rare disease because it is so uncommon.

Severity

Based on information gathered, we concluded that AIWS is not a threat to the person experiencing it or to the people surrounding them. The danger carried with this disease is minor and can only cause the patient little mental outburst at points in time. Although, if AIWS is now treated it can possibly lead the person to become extremely mentally disturbed. However, doctors say there has never been an incident that severe.

Treatment

There are a several ways to treat AIWS however, there is no cure . Since this is a mental disease, victims are treated with medication such as:

antidepressants

anti- seizure medications

calcium channel blockers

beta blockers

Interesting Facts

It has been reported that there are a number of people that has found enjoyment with AIWS and don't mind its presents. Most of these people are usually adults and don't witness the full impact of Todd's disease.